For today I'm not going to say anything. (Yes, I can hear some of you breathing a sigh of relief.)
Instead, I'd like to hear from you! What is the purpose of religion? Now, think carefully. This can be a personal answer, a philosophical expose, or anywhere in between.
What is the true purpose of religion, God, belief? Does it even have a purpose? If you don't think so, say so!
[The following is the first part in a series of interviews I had with God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. My lawyer told me to say that nothing God [henceforth to be known as THE BIG GUY] says is representative of this blog or interviewer [henceforth to be known as ME]. All opinions, statements and assertions made by THE BIG GUY in no way represents this blog or ME. The opinions, comments and delusions of grander are THE BIG GUY's own, and no one shall hold this blog, or ME, liable for anything expressed.]
I have always found the concept of Heaven to be fascinating. One of the first questions I asked myself as a kid was,
"Will I like Heaven when I get there?"
As the underlying motivation behind Christianity, it was an important question to consider.
Immediately I found problems with the Christian view of Heaven. The qualifications for deciding who should get to Heaven seemed a little dubious. The Catholic idea of being judged by our consistency in performing certain rituals sounded a little shallow as criteria for eternal like. And the protestant view that nothing is taken into account except submission to Christ, seemed like a very fuzzy proposition as well.
The first issue I had was with the apparent uniformity of Heaven. Here was a place that everyone inhabited, with all their differences and uniqueness, and yet for each Heaven is the epitome of bliss.
A perfect Heaven, with no moral choices, no contrasting views or conflict between individuals, didn't seem like a place which I would find very interesting.
Of course, I could do without the hate and deceit and unfairness that we experience on a daily basis, but the Heaven described in the Bible speaks only of harmony, love -- and of course praise and worship. There was no celebration of the individual, or personal achievement, or learning or growing as a person.
Overall, the bible appears to suggest that, once stripped of evil and sin, the human spirit is also stripped of its individuality.
This didn't seem right to me. I had always felt so unlike others around me, and I found it difficult -- and disheartening -- to think those differences represented all that was evil about me.
I also didn't think much of the idea that I'd be spending eternity singing praises to God. For one thing, I can't sing to save my life, and always hated that part of Church. As well, most of my own personal pleasures had nothing to do with God. To exchange those personal pleasures for something I really didn't care to do anyway did not appear to make for a very satisfying afterlife.
But since I still felt I needed a better understanding of Heaven, I examined the only specific example of a physical, literal, Heaven-like place described in the Bible: The Garden of Eden in the Book of Genesis.
In the Book of Genesis, the Bible tells us that in the beginning the world was "good". And the Garden of Eden was chosen by God as Man's dwelling place. Little else is said about this world God had created for Man, aside from the obvious about dominion over animals and to go out and multiply and so forth -- but all that sounded pretty much like the world now, so it didn't help me much in understanding Heaven.
So, instead I examined the event that is at center of this story: the casting out of Adam and Eve by God for eating the forbidden fruit. I decided the key to understanding Heaven must lie in this act which gets them banished from it.
Genesis mentions two specific trees that exist in the Garden of Eden. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life. Only the Tree of Knowledge, which stands in the center of the Garden, is given a location.
Whether you believe Genesis is talking about literal trees and fruit or not, I think the most significant question to ask is why such a forbidden tree was in the Garden of Eden in the first place. If the Garden was God's perfect vision, and the closest we've ever gotten to Heaven, why was it there? And should we expect a similarly nefarious surprise upon entering Heaven?
The only other tree mentioned in the Garden, the Tree of Life, was obviously not touched by Adam or Eve, although it doesn't seem to be forbidden to them.
We know this because in Genesis 3:22, it tells us this:
And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever."
From this verse I think we can conclude two things: 1) eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was a significant step in becoming like God, and 2) the final step toward Man's godhood would be eating from the Tree of Life, granting Man immortality.
The most surprising thing to me is that the happy couple chose the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, which was forbidden, over the fruit of the Tree of Life, which granted immortality. After all, immortality would have given them plenty of time to come up with a better plan for sneaking some fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. The fact that they made such an obvious mistake makes it clear that the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge not only bestowed a knowledge of Good and Evil, but a capacity for rational thought as well.
In fact, I'll bet the first thought they had after eating fruit from the Tree of Knowledge was, "Shit! We should have eaten from the Tree of Life instead!"
Imagine how different things would be if they had... But let's skip on from this regretful thought, to examine the sin itself.
In Chapter 2, verses 16-17, God tells Adam and Eve:
"You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."
Even at this early stage, it is made clear that death is the threat which motivates obedience. But two things stand out for me about this statement. First, if Adam and Eve had never experienced death, how was this an effective deterrent? But even more peculiar is why God uses the threat of death in association with the Tree of Knowledge. Wouldn't that have been better served as a punishment for taking from the Tree of Life?
Shouldn't the punishment for taking from the Tree of Knowledge be spending an eternity as a blithering idiot? ...oh, wait. They already were.
It becomes apparent that God was actually lying to Adam and Eve about the consequences of eating the forbidden fruit. They would most surely die, but not as a consequence of eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. It would have been more truthful to say that they would gain an understanding of their own mortality, which would have been scary enough for someone who had never encountered death.
We know that this is true because of God's words as quoted in Genesis 3:22. Here he reveals not only that the Tree of Life would grant Adam and Eve eternal life, but also that they had not yet eaten from it. Neither had he forbidden it.
If Adam and Eve became mortal as a consequence of eating from the Tree of Knowledge, then they must have bee immortal prior to committing the act.
But this can't be true when considered with the mention of the Tree of Life. Why would it be mentioned, and why would God express concern about them eating from it if they had already been immortal?
Therefore Adam and Eve were mortal before they had eaten of the forbidden fruit, in which case "death" could not have been the consequence for taking from the Tree of Knowledge.
God lied.
The final step in our journey to understand Heaven, is to examine the sinful act itself.
Defining exactly what sin Adam and Eve were actually committing will give us an idea of what will not be permitted in Heaven either, bringing us one step closer to a truer picture of that elusive place.
On the surface, the sin is obvious: disobedience. But, as our legal system knows, motive is 90% of the crime. And there is only a single motive they might have had for stealing the forbidden fruit.
Curiosity.
Before the eating of the forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve had no concept of Good and Evil. Therefore they could not have had any evil motivations. Or, if they did, they could not have been aware that they were evil.
Basically, their sin was about as complex as a baby who reaches out to touch a hot stove even though mom or dad had told them not too.
Adam and Eve's terrible sinful act was simply one of innocent curiosity.
With this in mind, God's terrible anger and punishment seems just a little overreactive.
But when you think of it, is it really that surprising? It has been a tradition for millenia of large religions to crush individual curiosity as a threat to doctrine. Killing heretics, dissenters and basically anyone that had the tenacity to ask questions about religious truths that did not make sense to them.
Even more interesting is how this brings us full circle to our initial investigation into Heaven.
Heaven's missing ingredient is personal individuality. And what else is the ultimate expression of individuality than personal choice? And what drives our personal choices? Curiosity.
But is this really that surprising? The history of the Christian Church, the Jewish faith and plenty of secular doctrines have shown us that the first
Since they had yet to eat of the fruit, they could not have any concept of what that knowledge would be, so they could not have had any clear intentions. In fact, since evil enters into the situation only after they partake of the fruit, their motives could not be as complex as an intention to show God up by disobeying him.
No, without possessing evil or the understanding of it, the only possible motive they could have experienced would be innocent curiosity.
I just finished watching a documentary entitled "Jesus Camp". (imdb link) It was a profoundly disturbing experience.
The first scene, before you even really know what you're watching, you see children dressed up in commando fatigues, singing a song about declaring war on the rest of the world. This scene sets the general tone for the entire film.
Surprisingly, the observer is almost entirely absent. This is no Michael Moore film with his constant satirical commentary. Even in the interviews, there is little sense of an interviewer. No one looks directly at the camera; no one asks any questions or interjects commentary. It's basically the proverbial fly on the wall effect. And it's effective.
Most of the movie concerns itself with the evangelical children's "Jesus Camp" of the title. Here children participate in a weekend of religious boot camp where they are "taught" the belief's and value systems of their parents.
But this camp goes way beyond teaching by arguably brainwashing these pre-teen children with a radical and extreme Christian doctrine. Children as young as five and six are seen sobbing uncontrollably, visibly shaking, with tears running down their faces -- while praying into the microphone for God to end abortion or the crisis in Iraq.
How can a child barely six-years old, who can't yet tell time, understand these complex issues? Why are they taught about babies before they learn about sex, or war before they even have social skills?
In another scene, the matronly MC of the camp, a frumpy lady in her forties, encourages the children to speak in tongues while praying -- which results in five hundred kids screaming complete nonsense while holding their hands in the air. Did no one explain to this leader and teacher that the term "tongue" during biblical times, meant "a language that other people can understand"? I understand that vocabulary probably isn't her strong suit, but where does it say in the Bible that God wants us to blither at Him unintelligibly? To paraphrase one astute gentleman, you really only need to know the words for "fight" and "fuck" to adequately communicate with anyone else, but this display lacked even that much.
The indoctrination even goes so far as to hold up the terrorists of 9/11 as examples of faith these children should esteem to. "Why are they willing to die for their God and you are not?" shouts the teacher while punching the air with her fist. "You should be willing to die for God just like they were!"
Later, in an interview with a young six-year old girl, she happily tells us that it is her sincere desire to become a martyr for God. Another boy, 12 years old, explains how dying for your faith is a good thing, and how martyrs are not afraid because the experience is actually exciting.
For children who barely have an understanding of life, they've been taught a lot about death.
Shouldn't it say something to us that Adam and Eve were fully grown adults when being offered the gift of knowing the difference between good and evil? The moral of this seems to be that even God understands that children are not ready to be presented with such decisions.
My problem really isn't so much with these radical, nazi-like Christians; they are obviously insane and can be excused. But where are all the "decent" Christians? Why aren't these people being called out by other Christians?
Didn't Jesus say something about cleaning up your own house before ... well, cleaning up someone else's? And I know there was something in the Good Book about throwing stones....
I know what you're thinking -- What does time travel have to do with the question of God's existence?
Remember that one of my assumptions in exploring the concept of God is that the only place to find this answer is in understanding the reality that makes up our Universe. Therefore any subject which tries to dissect how our Reality works, and how we interact with it is fair game for discussion.
In the course of this exploration we'll be looking at a lot of different concepts about our Reality, including Relativity, Quantum Mechanics and the nature of matter and energy.
Time travel is about as far out as you can get, but I came across an interesting thought recently during my research which I thought would be fun to share with you. We don't have to be serious all the time, do we?
In his Theory of Special Relativity, Einstein postulates that it is possible to travel forward in time, but it is not possible to travel back in time.
If you stop to think about this, it reveals a very interesting characteristic of our Universe. According to Einstein, time is relative, but only in the forward direction.
I was watching a documentary yesterday about time travel and one idea in particular caught my fancy.
Basically, it goes like this: as computers become faster and more powerful, eventually we will have computers capable of creating an exact replica of our world. This virtual world would contain every single element that our actual world contains.
From examining this replica of our world, the computer would be able to project backwards to any point in the past. How would it do this? By utilizing the law of cause and effect, the computer would simply be identifying the cause (the past) by understand the effect (the present).
Make sense so far? But that isn't the tricky part.
This computerized replica of the world, or virtual world, would be so perfect in every respect that the elements that made up this virtual world would not even be aware that they inhabited a virtual world rather than the real one.
In other words, the people who populated this virtual past would be unaware that it is not real. They would be conscious entities inhabiting what is to them a completely real and valid universe.
Assuming this does these virtual worlds become possible in the future, it is reasonable to assume that there will be more individuals inhabiting those worlds than the real one -- since one can assume there would be multiple computers creating multiple worlds, each with populations equal to the real one.
Therefore, based on this fact, there is a greater likelihood that you exist in one of those virtual worlds than that you exist in the real one.
How would you know?
(Of course my parents have been telling me I'm living in a fantasy world for most of my life anyway...)
--Eric
There is one argument for belief in God that I have heard more than any other.
Basically, it goes like this: If God does exist and you choose not to believe in Him, you are screwed after you die and will be spending eternity in the torment of Hell.
If you choose not to believe in God and are wrong, you pay for your mistake by spending eternity being tormented in Hell. But if you choose to believe and are wrong, you haven't really lost anything. So why take the chance? You might as well hedge your bets by believing -- just in case.
Well, on the surface this seems like a valid argument. After all, it's kind of like buying insurance -- "just in case."
But is it really true that being a Christian is a "win/win" situation? Does believing in God really cost you nothing if you end up being wrong?
Let's take a closer look at this proposition. If you buy insurance and never use it, you have only lost whatever investment acquiring the insurance required. We can apply the same idea to the choice to believe in God. If you come to the end of your life and discover your belief was misplaced, what has it actually cost you?
Growing up as a Christian for the first twenty years of my life, I think I can fairly accurately estimate the cost of being a believer.
First let's look at your investment of time:
I find it ironic that although God is supposed to be responsible for the creation of everything around us -- this entire natural world, any evidence of His intervention in our lives is referred to as "supernatural."
According to the Bible, we were created in His image, and the world and universe surrounding us was birthed from within His mind. It seems to me that if this was indeed the case, His interaction with that world should be the most "natural" thing imaginable.
The fact that we refer to His presence in our world as "unnatural" -- or "supernatural" -- is an interesting indication that we know, on a deep and instinctual level, that God does not belong in our reality -- otherwise why would we perceive His intervention as something contrary to the way the natural world is supposed to act?
If there is a God, we should expect to see miracles, divine intervention and holy signs. It should be an inherent characteristic of our reality. But it isn't. Even believers respond to miraculous intervention as something "out of the ordinary," contrary to normal reality, and not part of the expected definition of our Universe.
--Eric
This blog is a product of my own mind, and therefore is indelibly linked to a set of assumptions based on my own knowledge, background and experience.
In order for you to understand the thoughts I express, you must also be aware of the foundation from which my ideas originate.
A note on assumptions: 1) We all have assumptions -- whether we are aware of them or not; 2) Assumptions can be wrong; and, 3) Assumptions create unintended limitations on our ability to formulate ideas.
This truth about assumptions cannot be denied. We are all limited by the assumptions we make before we even attempt to draw conclusions about the world around us.
It is partly this issue which I am trying to combat by starting this blog and inviting others to participate in its discussion.
Although we cannot completely overcome the limitations our assumptions create, we can at least try to be aware of them and be open to adjusting them as we gather additional information.
So, here is a short list of my own assumptions:
The purpose of this blog is simple. I hope it will serve as a "scratch pad" for ideas I've had regarding the nature of the universe and how understanding that reality can illuminate the question of existence of God. Eventually, I plan to compile these ideas into logical form and eventually publish them as a book.
My hope is that I will receive feedback and thoughts from visitors to this blog, and this will help me to refine my ideas and see holes in my thought process that I might otherwise miss should I just let my thoughts ferment only in my own mind.
I encourage readers to post comments, suggestions or ideas of their own in order to facilitate discussion on these concepts.
But No Rants Please!
Although I am looking for differing points of view, and am open to having holes poked in my ideas and theories, I am not interested in rants. If you are only interested in telling me how I am going to hell for questioning the existence of God, please don't bother. However, if you have something intelligent to add -- regardless of whether it supports or refutes something I've said -- please feel free to voice your opinion.
Later on I hope to attach a discussion forum to this blog so that it will be easier for readers to share their ideas and be involved in discussions.
If you would like to know a little bit about me, where I come from and why I am creating this blog, please read my profile where I give a little history of my background.
For myself, I see this blog shaping into two separate types of posts. First, I will be posting questions that I am asking myself in exploring these topics, and see what kind of thoughts others have on these subjects. These questions may simply be a straightforward statement of a thought or query, or it may include a short discussion representing my own thoughts regarding the question.
Secondly, I will be including short essays exploring different concepts in a more complete format. These essays will likely represent the first drafts of chapters that I plan to include in the future book I'm working on.
I have written a paper on this subject and initially I will likely draw from that earlier work, but my hope is that, through help from you my constant readers (to take a page from Stephen King), I'll be able to expand on those ideas and moving in totally new directions as well.
So thanks for stopping by and I look forward to hearing from each of you!
--Eric
Hi, my name is Eric and I am 32 years old. I grew up in a small town in New England but moved to California when I was 19. I currently live in the mountains of Southern California with two adorable puppies.
I was brought up in a fairly religious and conservative home. My father was a pastor in the Quaker Church for much of my childhood, and faith in God has always been a foundational element in my family life.
I have always questioned my faith. At age 12 I was punished by my Sunday school teacher for questioning the truth of the Bible (I had to sit in the car while everyone else enjoyed the church picnic). According to my teacher, my outspokenness was detrimental to the faith of my fellow students, and so, after speaking with my parents, I was moved to the adult class where my questions would be less damaging.
Throughout my twenties I continued to struggle with these same doubts and questions. It was for this reason that I chose Philosophy as my major in college.
Then, in my mid-twenties, three important changes took place that have been influential in the development of my thinking on the existence of God.
The first shift in my thinking, and what I believe was the start of my true journey into the exploration of this subject, was that I finally managed to stop feeling guilty for my doubts. For a long time I had been plagued by the feeling that I was a disappointment to my family, while at the same time being angry that I could not as easily accept the truths that everyone else seemed to consider self-evident.
I was also torn between an almost desperate need to have my thoughts validated by those around me -- the most important people in my life: my family; but I also feared being responsible for causing others to doubt their own faith. I love my family and, although I desired their validatation, I also did not want them to experience the same internal struggle that I was going through. I felt guilty every time I let my passion get too hot which inevitably resulted in conflict.
I resolved to stop discussing the subject with my family, and I believe that helped me to release the guilt I had always felt in regard to my contrary thoughts and feelings.
As I continued to consider the question of God's existence or absence, I became convinced that the answer could be found by understanding the nature of reality itself. If God had truly created both Heaven and Earth, I felt it would be impossible for Him not to leave an impression of Himself in His creation. Therefore if He did exist, evidence of that existence would be woven into the very definition of the universe.
At first this only led to further confusion and frustration, and this caused a dramatic shift in my approach to the problem. For the first time I began looking for evidence of God's absence, rather than evidence of His existence.
Let me explain. During most of my life, as I struggled with these questions, my goal had always been to prove that God did exist. The idea that there was no God was such a scary concept that unconsciously the goal of my thinking had always been to find proof of God. Now however I was able to switch my thinking and instead start with the premise that He did not exist and evaluate the evidence in that light.
Up until this point I had still considered myself a Christian struggling with his faith, but now I had to admit that I could no longer claim that affiliation. I was now an agnostic.
I reevaluated all of my previous thinking under this new view of the issue. And to my surprise, I discovered that the world around me suddenly made a great deal more sense than it had before. It was as if I had been trying to place a square peg into a round hole, and now I had picked up a round peg and was startled to find how much easier it fit.
But this feeling was still very intangible, and so, being a writer, I decided to attempt to articulate my thoughts on paper. I've been working on this thesis (off and on) for most of the last two years.
And it is from that paper that the idea for this blog was born.
As I attempted to articulate my thoughts in written form, I found the biggest obstacle to the project was my own isolation. I needed feedback from others to help me see the faults in my arguments and refine my ideas that were still too ethereal and undefined as yet.
But I could not turn to my family for this feedback, which left me without another source. Thus the creation of this blog.
I have many thoughts and ideas, but they need to be refined and expanded. To help me with that I need outside input -- other brains to help me look at things from different perspectives and views.
So that is the hope I have for this blog: To find other inquiring "souls" (no pun intended) who are willing to explore these concepts with me without defensiveness or anger.
I know the question that believers who visit this blog will be asking themselves is: Am I open to the idea that during the process of this exploration I will change my mind about God's existence and become a believer myself?
Certainly. In fact, I am hoping that contrary arguments will be brought up by others which force me to think deeper and explore ideas I hadn't considered.
So there it is. I hope that if you are reading this, you will explore this blog and participate in discussions of one of the most important questions mankind has ever considered.
Good luck and (dare I say it?) God Bless!
--Eric
